


An Unhappy Trade

by Selkit



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Death in Childbirth, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 06:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/pseuds/Selkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bard and his youngest child get off to a difficult start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unhappy Trade

This was always the hardest part.

The midwife looked down at her hands, half-submerged in the pot of lukewarm water. Even through the murky red liquid, she could still see blood clinging to the cracks in her weathered skin, stubborn as the infant who had refused to budge for far too long. Stifling a sigh, she picked up the tallow soap again, scrubbing until her knuckles ached.

She glanced across the tiny room. The window was shuttered, but she could glimpse snatches of feeble light beginning to gather at the sill. Dawn would break soon. 

Her eyes shifted to her assistant, the younger woman silhouetted in front of the fireplace, bobbing gently up and down and cooing at the newborn in her arms. The infant was quiet—almost _too_ quiet—her entrance into the world unceremonious save for that first angry cry, the one that had let the midwife’s breath come a little easier.

Against all odds, the babe would live.

The midwife’s gaze strayed to the curtain separating the bedroom from the rest of the house. She could just make out the muffled voices within, rising to the occasional peak before falling back into murmurs, interrupted now and again by a low moan of pain. Her jaw clenched, and the soap prickled at her tingling skin. _It won’t be long, now._

After almost four decades of attending at birthing beds, she had seen more women die than she cared to count. She had grasped trembling hands and soothed dampened brows, murmured final words of comfort and brushed sightless eyes closed. She had stepped in time and again to take the place of uncaring or balking husbands, shouldering death’s burden when they could not. 

And yet, somehow, it never seemed to grow any easier. 

Within the bedroom, the voices had fallen silent. The midwife rose, shaking water droplets from gnarled fingers, and pushed the curtain aside. 

It was darker inside, a single forgotten candle on the bedside table providing the only light, and she paused to let her eyes adjust. Gradually the haze cleared, shapes solidifying out of the gloom—sweat-streaked hair strewn across a pillow, swollen fingers unmoving against a distended abdomen, dark crimson stains soaking into pale sheets. The stale air clogged the back of her throat with the scent of sweat and blood, and she turned her head away to hide her grimace, striding to the tiny window and pushing it halfway open. The morning’s first light spilled into the room, falling across the bed and casting the dead woman’s face in cold, gray tones. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, as though preparing to draw one more breath.

The midwife looked away, eyes traveling to the chair pulled up by the side of the bed.

“Bard,” she said quietly. 

Were it not for the slight rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed, the midwife might almost have mistaken him for a statue hewn from unfinished stone. He sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his wife’s limp hand clasped in both of his and pulled up to his lips. His eyes were fixed on her face, unwavering. 

He was not an old man—if she closed her eyes she could still remember his own birth, Girion’s heir entering the world with a head of black hair and a squalling indignant cry. But in the shadowed room, his face haggard with exhaustion and grief, he looked a full decade older than his eight-and-twenty years. 

“Bard,” she said again, crossing the room to stand beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Come, lad. She’s gone beyond your reach. It’s your daughter who needs you now.”

At her last words he finally shifted, every movement stiff, as though forcing himself awake after a long slumber. The chair creaked under his weight.

“Not yet,” he spoke. His voice was hoarse, thick with unshed tears. “She’s still fast asleep, she and Bain. I left them with the baker’s wife, clear across town, so they wouldn’t hear the—”

The words faltered, and he bowed his head, his fingers tightening around his wife’s hand. The midwife listened as he fought to stem the tide of grief, struggling to keep his breathing under control. 

“I wasn’t speaking of Sigrid,” she said gently, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze. “You have a new little girl to care for now.”

He stilled, his face settling into an inscrutable mask, and his shoulder went rigid under her hand.

“Seven years,” he said after a long moment. His voice was brittle, threatening to splinter, like clay left out in the sun too long. “Almost seven years since Bain was born.”

She knelt next to his chair to better see his face, ignoring the creaking protests from joints no longer as nimble as they’d once been. “What are you saying?”

His hand blurred in the dark as he reached out to touch his wife’s face, cupping her cheek, his thumb tracing the edge of her lower lip. “She became pregnant with Bain when Sigrid was barely weaned,” he said softly, his voice as distant as the memory. “After Bain came, it was like she was holding her breath, waiting for it to happen again. She loves our children—”

His voice broke, pain flashing in his eyes as he caught himself. “Loved,” he whispered. “But each pregnancy drained her of all her strength. All those months, I felt as though I was watching her fade a little more every day.”

He paused, fingers brushing over a blood smear on his wife’s cheek. 

“After a while,” he said, “she started to think perhaps she couldn’t conceive again, perhaps something had happened during Bain’s birth…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “And she was relieved. She wouldn’t say it, but I could see it in her eyes.”

His voice lowered, going flat and quiet, and the midwife leaned in to hear. 

“We didn’t ask for this,” he said. The words were almost a growl, tinged with despair and bewilderment. “We didn’t ask for a third child.”

“Hush, lad.” She forced down a sudden jolt of alarm, her nails digging sharply into his shoulder. “That’s your grief talking, nothing more.”

His breath left him in a hiss, his teeth bared like an animal. “Nothing more?” he repeated, his voice turning raw. 

“Listen to me.” She rose and skirted the chair until she stood in front of him, forcing his eyes upward. “This isn’t you, Bard. Anyone with eyes can see how much you love your children, what a blessing they are in your life.”

“But not in exchange for _this_.” His head jerked down, eyes raking his wife’s body. “Not at this cost.”

Movement caught the midwife’s eye, and she looked down to see his hands shaking, bereft of the steadiness that had guided countless arrows to their marks. 

“Why now?” he asked, the words both demand and plea. He met her eyes in the dark, and she could see the plain desperation of a man standing on the edge of a precipice. “Why, after seven years? After she’d already survived two births? Why this?”

His voice was still low, almost keening, but the words rang in her ears like the clash of cymbals. It was the question she’d been asked a thousand times before—by husbands, by children who couldn’t understand where their mothers had gone, and by herself most of all.

It was a question that still had no answer. 

“I don’t know, lad,” she said, letting the quiet weariness seep into her tone at last. “I wish I could tell you what went wrong. But sometimes, despite every effort we make, the strain is simply too great. The body does what it wills.” 

His brow creased, his mouth opening, and she held up a hand to forestall his response.

“What I _do_ know,” she pressed on, leaning down to look him in the eye, “is your new little one didn’t ask for her birth any more than you did, and she will grow up never knowing her mother. She’s been on this earth no more than an hour and already she has suffered loss. You, Bard, are all she has now.”

He held her gaze a moment longer before looking away, running his hand down his face, palm scratching over stubble. She heard his long, shuddering exhalation, and his shoulders deflated, the anger fading from his eyes and leaving only sorrow. 

“Come,” the midwife said, more gently. She stepped away, moving toward the curtain at the room’s entrance. “Hold your daughter.”

She watched as he stood, carefully releasing his wife’s hand and settling it by her side. His fingers slipped around to cradle the back of her head as he bent to kiss her brow, lips moving against her skin in a silent farewell. 

When he rose, his face was drawn and grave, but his eyes were clear.

“I’m ready,” he whispered.

His steps were slow as he walked into the other room, as though his feet were shackled to the floor, and his expression tightened as he caught sight of the infant. The midwife motioned with her head, and her assistant crossed the room, carefully transferring the newborn to Bard’s arms. 

The midwife stepped back, watching father and daughter stare at each other. Heavy silence covered the room like a wizard’s spell, all but blocking out the faraway sounds of the town beginning to wake. Her fingers twined together in front of her, and with a start she realized she was holding her breath, her gaze fixed on Bard’s set jaw and unreadable eyes. 

“She’s healthy?” he finally asked, the words so hushed the midwife almost missed them. His eyes never left his daughter’s tiny face as he spoke, and he ran one thumb gently across the wispy brown hair atop her head.

“Aye,” the midwife answered. “A bit smaller than I would like, but I see nothing to hint she won’t grow as fast and strong as her siblings.”

He breathed something too quick and soft for her to catch, and all at once it seemed as though something broke inside him, the last stages of his internal battle playing out on his face. The hard lines and creases softened, and he drew the infant closer to his chest, cupping the back of her head in his palm. 

“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered, voice thick with mingled love and grief. “I’m here, little one. You’ll be all right.”

The midwife took a step forward, drawing his gaze over the infant’s head.

“And you?” she asked. “Will you be?”

He stared at her for a long moment before his lips stretched thin and tight, an expression that might have been a smile were it not for the emptiness in his eyes.

“I have to be,” he said. His voice was soft, but resolute. “For their sake.”

“Bard,” she began instinctively, casting about for words of comfort or reassurance before realizing there were none.

Judging from his expression, he knew it, too.

“Thank you for everything,” he said, the words quiet and polite and bleak. Already his eyes began to travel back toward the curtain leading to the bedroom. 

The midwife gave a silent nod and turned away, watching her assistant gather up the last of her herbs and tools. She went to the door and pushed it open, and the frigid breeze blew up from the lake, whipping around her clothes and driving its chill into her bones. 

She glanced back as the door slowly swung closed, and saw him framed in the cold light, the babe tucked in the crook of his arm and his other hand covering his face.


End file.
